Ironing out the wrinkles – hitting the road!

So it’s officially been a week since we left!

We’ve already seen a lot and experienced a lot! And it didn’t take long for Tim to get me to cave: we have already spent the night in a wal-mart parking lot (practicality overrules pride PRETTY quick at midnight).

This week has been mostly about ironing out the wrinkles. (Though I’m sure there will be more). We lived in our trailer for 6 weeks before hitting the road and got practiced at how the systems work, how to pack up and move every few days, how to keep kids semi-clean while camping, how to cook on a propane stove with one adjustable burner, that sort of thing. But this first week? We got a taste the roadtrip aspects to our trip. Our adventures have been: explaining to Sara that no we can’t pop over to see Grandma at the drop of a hat; figuring out where to camp and buy groceries when we don’t know in advance where we will be or when; and rediscovering that oh, right, kids don’t like carseats for multiple hours every day. (Or as Jacob put it one day: “ALL DONE TRUCK!!!!”)

Time for a new approach.

We’ve had a lot of fun though! While the first 5 days and 4 nights were spent just getting to Edmonton (yeah, I know), we saw a lot of neat things on the way! We spent a night at the Twin Falls Gorge Campground and went for a really nice walk the next morning with the kids to see the waterfalls. Jacob for some reason has taken to calling water “yoyo” so all morning he was exclaiming “yoyo fallfall!!” Sara super impressed us with her stamina and did a large chunk of the 5 km hike before saying ever-so-sweetly “can I go in the stroller now?”

The last 3 nights we’ve been enjoying Edmonton. We stayed the first two nights at Rainbow Valley Campground. For being in the middle of the city it’s a pretty awesome little spot. Now we’re street parked at my grandparents house. The irony is the usually quiet, empty street is going to be a lot busier soon when the construction crew starts tearing up the back alley for water line maintenance starting this Monday…. “That trailer taking up, like, 3 good parking spots? No sir, I have no idea who owns it….”